Jemil Metti

Operation Olive Tree is about two opera-talented, Oasis of Peace High School teenagers, Irith Goldman, an Israeli, and Jamal Shaheen, a Palestinian. Their passion for opera grows into a friendship and a dream to sing for peace. Despite initial support from the Israeli Ministry of Education and intensive opera coaching from Tel Aviv University’s award winning voice trainer Susan Roth, they are frequently haunted by cultural prejudices related to decades of warfare over territory and religion. In addition, the support of family and friends is dormant because of their collective mistrust of Irith’s partnership with her Palestinian singing prodigy who has family ties to an uncle, a terrorist suspect, and a childhood friend, an abused risk taker with regular brushes with the law. On the other hand, Jamal’s father fears losing him to opera, preferring his career to advance along the path of his older siblings in the medical field. But, nobody could have predicted the direction their careers take following their exposure to the life of a Mossad agent in Baghdad, Iraq, where Irith emerges as Russian-Swiss opera star Tatyana Smirnoff, and Jamal an escaped fugitive from Israeli law!

Operation Olive Tree

A story of redemption and self-examination, The Pahlavi Sword introduces SAVAK security Captain Jamsheed Al-Armaghani, the young, handsome officer who finds himself at risky odds with his immediate supervisor, Commander Farouk Nabizadeh. SAVAK's systematic torture of Evin Prison's inmates infuriates and confronts Jamsheed's conscience and security status to the point of underground resistance. Subsequently, he is publicly branded a fugitive of the law, which compels him to forge a fragile, unlikely alliance with outlawed, anti-regime resistance fighters and political organizations, including the communist-leaning Tudeh Party. His one-year asylum under the protection of Tehran's Assyrian Church subjects him to a brief romantic encounter with loyal church member Fareeda, an outspoken, nurse and daring Assyrian freedom fighter. He is also conflicted by his own covert actions, constantly questioning whether they are driven by his instinctive desire to seek justice or revenge, particularly when obsessed by an unrelenting crave to embarrass his former commander Nabizadeh before the shah, he blindly admires, and expose him embroiled in multiple scandals, including blackmail, drug trafficking and child kidnapping. As Jamsheed's world increasingly slips on the fast track of regime change, he and brother Mahmood reluctantly flee Iran before travel restrictions are imposed, as their homeland is poised to welcome its exiled religious leader, the Ayatollah Raola Khomeini, in February of 1979. Whether or not Jamsheed Al-Armaghani returns to Iran is ultimately influenced by Evin's former inmate, Thuraya Al Gailani.

Jemil Metti

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